


Votum

by scy



Category: Lucifer (Comic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 14:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scy/pseuds/scy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When doesn't want to be noticed for being different, concealment is necessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Votum

**Author's Note:**

> Written for spykeraven, who requested Mazikeen fic. Title is Latin for 'vow.'

In Hell there had been no discernible course to the light that beat down on them. The only real means of determining when night was going to fall was an even more uncertain game of chance that depended on Lucifer's mood. At least, that was what the lesser demons claimed. There was no one in a position to dispute such claims who would share their insights. Those who were clever enough to see past the games of the so-called nobility had either given themselves away or found it easier to play along and don forms in keeping with the current fashion.

Although Mazikeen didn't usually place much value on such trends, she did notice that Lucifer tended to prefer formal dress or that of a more antique cut. In that respect he always managed to pull off lazy elegance without trying. Mazikeen had seen self-proclaimed lords of Hell expend considerable effort in pretending to have even a fraction of the standing that the Morningstar was given as his due. The same could not be said for those who were considered to have come up through the ranks by accident, and they resented anyone who had found a place near the throne. It was necessary for her to shape herself into that role with deliberate care.

Mazikeen had always been aware of the effect her bare face had on others. Like others of her kind she had chosen the form to show the world, and that had nothing to do with its aesthetic appeal. Among humans she found that she had to turn away, otherwise they shrank away, and her master reminded her that fearful people made poor customers unless their business was extortion. She understood that Lucifer was not interested in such petty endeavors, but as yet had not found a solution that was not dislodged by amorous hands. To hide away what she had fashioned intentionally with care rankled; she was Lilim, and their differences were a mark which could not be ignored or taken from them.

Thus far Lucifer hadn't ordered her to make herself more like Beatrice, the woman who waited tables, or one of the women who preened and fussed at their reflections in the mirror, unable to decide who they wanted to be, but Mazikeen had to be extremely careful when she was in public, and she found that limiting her abilities to perform her duties. Many deeds were best done in darkness, but not all of them could be, and she had to be able to do as her lord required.

As she ducked away from another man's curious groping, Mazikeen held her hood against her face with one hand, and with her other, shoved the human back with as much force as she could in public. He still staggered, face reddening, but Mazikeen hissed at him and he checked himself instead of pressing the issue. Mazikeen waited for him to hurry out the door and then she flung her hood back.

"I should nghot hhave tzu hhide," she said, knowing Lucifer was close and had seen what had nearly happened.

"If you wish to move freely through crowds of mortals without attracting attention, it would be advisable to blend in," Lucifer said. He neither warned the mortals off nor scolded Mazikeen for the way she conducted herself.

"Zhhoze akk one of zhem?" Mazikeen asked. To pretend to be something she was not felt wrong.

"Let them think so, if that won't offend your honor." Lucifer seemed to find the concept amusing, but as with many things, he didn't elaborate.

"Zhis rhhould allow me to gho about vhithout trouble?" Mazikeen inquired.

"Those whose looks are pleasing will never avoid notice, but you would not be pointed out as an aberration."

"Zhe Lilim hhare ngot ssubject to zhe lawz of mgen," Mazikeen declared, but understood the necessity was a means to meet her needs.

"Then let your judgment guide you," Lucifer advised, and went back through the door to his private rooms.

When she first shaped her features, perfection hadn't been her aim. But she had lost that choice. To think that she should hide what had been done was against all of her principles, but she was determined to find the same middle ground that she'd occupied her entire life.

Unlike Hell, Earth wasn't populated by demons who stayed in close proximity to Lucifer in order to try and gain power. That gave Mazikeen fewer dangers to be watchful, but more than Lucifer considered worth his notice. Her position was between him and any threats and even when Lucifer didn't consider it necessary. Therefore she needed to be garbed suitably to that end. To know how best to fit in among humans, she watched them during business hours and tried to determine what the best solution would be. When she came upon an answer, he sought out Lucifer at the piano. He wasn't playing a song but rather performing scales.

"You want to ask me something," he said, eyes not lifting from the keys.

"I hhave vound a zholution," Mazikeen said.

Lucifer's finite patient waited on her explanation and Mazikeen was deliberate in her phrasing. "It neehds hhour touzsch."

"Is that so?" Lucifer still didn't glance away from what he was doing, and Mazikeen knew she had to make it worthwhile.

"A mask," he said, when she made the proposal.

It would hide her face, the entirety of her work and her identity, she didn't say, but Lucifer knew what she was thinking, why she balked.

"There are more elegant methods," Lucifer informed her.

"Lhike rhat?"

Lucifer regarded her uncovered face and said. "Let them see what they want, and keep the truth to yourself. You need not hide away, Mazikeen, simply use a bit of the theatrical and they will be intrigued rather than repulsed."

Mazikeen shook her head, not sure what he meant.

"Half your face hidden, leave the rest as it is, but covered." So she would not have to face accusations of being ashamed of her heritage, nor heap them on privately.

There were no forges to mold the object she imagined, but she had the raw material and had posed the question. She didn't have to fumble over defining what it meant to wear something fashioned by him, even if his signature was only in the creation and lines of the mask.

"You have components to be altered," Lucifer surmised.

"Yesz." She had thought about what could be used and she came upon a blade that she had threatened an angel with eons ago. She would wear her bloodline and allegience, although the meaning would be lost on anyone not present at the forging. Since she was small, Mazikeen had been told that her place was among creation's refuse. Every one of her ancestors had been denied entrance to the paradise that Yahweh had bid spring forth to support his chosen heirs. None of her kin had been present to witness the great crime and yet they were all accorded the same dismissal. Now she had the chance, in a city of mortals, to see that such dismissal was not heaped so easily on her.

"This could end in overused dramatics, so I will be brief," Lucifer said.

Mazikeen would not have minded a bit of ceremony; the timelessness of repetition could lend even mundane action enough weight to make it sink heavily into the mind afterwards.

Lucifer knew all of this and had seen The Word spin dust into worlds. Mazikeen had come much later, and she knew the Lilim's preoccupation with ritual was parochial in the kindest terms of some. She had less than speaking rights at the war council, but spell and magic stilled most grudges for the span of a working and so none would dispute her right to make the most of this occasion. What they would say about her chosen patron was irrelevant and she put it firmly from her thoughts.

Lucifer pushed the bench back and rose. He looked at the blade Mazikeen held and was not caught off guard. "You are hoping that I might see a way to turn craftsmanship into a show," he said.

"Ngy rroahd," Mazikeen answered, never pleading, but nearly asking him for the right to be even more favored.

"Give me the sword," Lucifer said, and Mazikeen placed it on top of the piano.

"It has claimed blood in combat as payment for a blow struck to more than just you," Lucifer observed, hand spread above the knife.

"Hhit hhasz," Mazikeen acknowledged.

Lucifer rested two fingers on the hilt and as they lifted away, the blade was the only piece remaining. It floated, held aloft by his will and when Lucifer flexed his fingers, heat dispersed in the air like a breeze from a volcano and structured lapsed into molten metal.

It did not look like a great amount of material, and Mazikeen waited to learn if it would serve its purpose. Yet even something at its limits would stretch for the Morningstar, and the metal first shrank and then spread, rippling as it came to rest in midair, waiting for its next incarnation.

He beckoned her close and with the heel of his hand, raised her chin up. Mazikeen knew to lower her gaze respectfully, but this was to make her place at his side a certainty, and so she kept her eyes on his.

"Not one to back down," Lucifer murmured teasingly, and to everyone but her it would have been mocking. Mazikeen heard another layer and she raised her chin higher.

Lucifer pulled the metal apart like taffy until it lay over his fingers, malleable for use. As he brought it to Mazikeen's face, she didn't let herself flinch. She would take what she'd asked for and her features could be reworked along any damage.

He smiled, aware of what she thought was going to happen and reached out, palming her face, metal somehow not searing flesh, as though he'd absorbed the heat.

When he took his hand away he was holding a mask, dull gray but whole. In the other, he gathered a small flame. He brought the two together, firing the mask and finishing it. The object he handed to her was opalescent, smooth and textured as much like her face as it could be on the inside, while the outer surface gave the world an impersonal visage.

"Here you are," Lucifer said and waited for her to reach out and take it. "I assume it meets with your approval."

"Zhank rou ng y rroahd," she said as she accepted the mask. She slid it on, feeling it rest lightly on her face, yet its weight was solid enough to remind her of its presence.

Lucifer didn't comment on how the customers would respond now; Mazikeen had acceded to several of humanity's rules and this wasn't about their acceptance.

"We open in an hour," Lucifer reminded. "There are preparations to be done."

"Yesz, rroahd Ruszcivah," Mazikeen said. As she wiped down the piano, she let her hand linger on the mask where Lucifer had touched it, and then she began setting out glasses and flipped the sign on the door to welcome the public into Lux.


End file.
